Two violent attacks came within "a bee's whisker" of turning fatal, a magistrate has warned while sparing three men further time behind bars.
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Dylan James Summerell, 19, was placed on an intensive correction order by the Galambany Circle Sentencing Court on Tuesday after he admitted involvement in both incidents.
Jack Elson, 22, and Jayden Robert Caldwell, 21, who took part in one each, also received community-based sentences.
"Everyone in this room is fortunate that these were not murders," magistrate James Stewart said during the sentencing.
The first incident, which occurred on Australia Day in 2022, involved Summerell, Caldwell and a juvenile.
The assault's male victim, who was known to two of the offenders, was struck in the head with a blunt object and stabbed in his right thigh with a metal star picket.
The "terrified" victim was also repeatedly punched, kicked, stomped on and left with several injuries, including multiple lacerations requiring stitches and broken ribs.
The second incident occurred in the early hours of March 26, 2022, outside a home in Dunlop.
It involved Elson and Summerell, as well as 19-year-olds Jamie Mitchell Barry, who was sentenced in October last year, and Jack Summerrell-Jenkins, who is due to learn his fate later this month.
The assault, which was captured in "quite traumatic footage", was previously described as a prolonged and "extreme" reprisal against the victim, who was a witness in a case against one of Barry's friends.
"Who snitched, who f---ing snitched c---?" Barry said to the victim as he hit him.
The victim, who eventually fell unconscious for 83 seconds, had his head stomped on, his face repeatedly struck and his body slammed into the bitumen during the attack.
The incident also involved kicks, threats to kill and a simulated sex act on the victim, who was eventually stripped naked before he fled and sought help.
Present for the sentencing on Tuesday were the offenders, the "courageous" victim of the March incident, and members of their families.
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Summerell was asked by that victim's parents for a "face-to-face apology".
The two men shook hands and hugged in the courtroom as Summerell apologised.
"Don't do it to anyone else - lesson learnt," the victim told Summerell.
The victim's father then said: "Thanks for being a man."
The offenders sat before the specialist ACT court, which included a panel of four Aboriginal elders.
Panel elder Uncle Benny Hodges challenged the offenders, who are all Wiradjuri men, to not "just say the pretty words".
"You've disrespected your culture. You've disrespected this panel," he said.
Aunty Michele Abel told the offenders she hoped to "never see you again in here" after helping oversee the "tragic story".
"We've hammered you today but there's a purpose for that," she said.
Caldwell was given an intensive correction order of a little more than one year and five months.
He was in breach of good behaviour orders issued in Batemans Bay for charges of stalking and choking at the time of the incident, and had already spent 51 days in custody on remand.
Elson, who also committed an act of indecency during the March assault, breached a 21-month intensive correction order by participating in the incident.
He was handed a new intensive correction order of two years, eight months and 22 days.
He attended court via audio-visual link from the Alexander Maconochie Centre, where he had been remanded in custody for more than six months.
Both Caldwell and Elson will also have to complete 80 hours of community service.
Summerell was sentenced to an intensive correction order for two years, five months and 11 days, along with 100 hours of community service.
He had previously spent 49 days in custody.
The three men were also banned from associating with their co-offenders.
"You've been given an opportunity - it's going to be a tough one," Uncle Benny told the offenders.
"There's saying it and there's doing it."
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